Wednesday, December 15, 2010

I saw both the wound care nurse and the surgeon today. They both agree with me that they feel that the whole area under my armpit is not improving with this cycle of Abraxane.

My wound care nurse tried to remove what looked like it might be slough, or dead tissue, from the deep part of the wound. However, when she tried, it would start bleeding. If it was dead tissue, it wouldn't bleed. It looks unusual, too, so she suspects that it's cancer.

The surgeon looks at the wound and he felt that the whole area - particularly in the back of the arm where most of the satellite lesions are - felt hard again, meaning that there is probably cancer throughout the area.

Not the greatest news one wants to hear. On the other hand, I'm glad that we're all monitoring the situation like we are so we can do something about sooner rather than later.

At the moment, here's my plan: first, talk to Dr. K and ask him to talk to Dr. D at UW about maybe prescribing Imiquomod for the skin mets. I see Dr. K next Monday and will broach the topic with him.

If he'd rather go another route, then it looks like surgery will be the next consideration.

I tend to think that since Abraxane has knocked out those lovely Herminator-2 cells, I no longer have both working together to knock out the cancer. So, it makes me wonder again if I should, perhaps, go off Abraxane for a few weeks and allow my body to regenerate Herminator-2 cells and then go back on it.